March 15, 2024 – Sky Harvest is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a substantial investment from the USDA Forest Service through the Forest Landowner Support Program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.
These funds will be used to support Sky Harvest’s mission “to preserve our home, serve our landowners, and seek sensible solutions.” Specifically, the grant funding will be used across several projects to support underserved and small-acreage landowner participation in the emerging voluntary carbon market. The projects include a commercial-scale demonstration project, a campaign to educate buyers and create awareness about the solutions of the Carbon 2.0 framework, and the development of back-end infrastructure to create greater accessibility and affordability for landowners.
Private landowners are key in the fight for climate resilience and forest health, as well as supporting rural economies. Emerging private markets for climate mitigation and forest resilience, such as the voluntary carbon market, can provide important economic incentives to landowners for managing their forests.
The USDA Forest Service is helping extend the economic and environmental benefits of the Sky Harvest program to more landowners. The USDA Forest Service has awarded $116 million to 20 awardees through the Forest Landowners Support Program. More information is available in the associated press release here.
We are grateful for this opportunity to partner with the Forest Service in its mission to serve underserved and small-acreage landowners. We give many thanks to our partners who have supported us thus far and will continue to support this effort going forward.
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Sky Harvest is a project developer in the voluntary carbon market working exclusively with small-acreage and underserved timberland operators in the United States to generate carbon credits. More importantly, Sky Harvest is voluntarily issuing credits under the Carbon 2.0 framework, which requires fewer credits issued but ensures that each credit issued properly and completely offsets the negative climate impact of emissions elsewhere. To our knowledge we are the only developer issuing credits with multiple tons of carbon in each credit. For additional information and citations on the science behind Carbon 2.0, please see: Carbon 2.0: A Better Yardstick for Carbon Markets and Carbon 2.0 Calculator.
The US Forest Service is federal agency under the US Department of Agriculture. The mission of the Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. As a Federal agency in service to the American people, the Forest Service cares for shared natural resources in ways that promote lasting economic, ecological, and social vitality. In doing this, the agency supports nature in sustaining life.
Additional proposals for up to $2 million are being accepted until August 21, 2024; more
information is available at Grants.gov. The Forest Service recently published a notice of funding opportunity for tribes and Alaska Native corporations and villages. More information is available at Grants.gov.